


Recounting the Deeds of the Day

by charlottemadison



Series: The Longest Night [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Compliant, Crowley says Ngk, Fluff, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), Scene: The Bus Ride (Good Omens), Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), Soft Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Soft Crowley (Good Omens), The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), The five stages of Aziraphale Coming Round, can be read as asexual, communication is the best, not much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 07:28:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21454282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlottemadison/pseuds/charlottemadison
Summary: The bus ride back to London was utterly silent. But only for the first seven minutes. Crowley and Aziraphale have a lot to catch up on by the time they get to Mayfair."Do you think I'm unaccustomed to you being **wrong,** angel?" grinned Crowley broadly. "I mean you have this whole dance you do, I know the steps by heart."Aziraphale frowned, jerked abruptly out of his wallow. "Pardon.""First you act horrified," Crowley explained as if it were the water cycle, "then there's the bit where you justify and explain things sanctimoniously. After that you disavow me and pretend we don't know each other. Then evidence mounts 'til you snap, and finally you turn up again and act like you agreed with me all along. Wossat, five parts? The five stages of Aziraphale Coming Round."Aziraphale blanched, feeling a little too Seen. It had been shaping up to be such a nice apology too..................."Oh, I didn't burn up," Aziraphale corrected breezily."Then how the everlasting fuck were you discorporated!?"Aziraphale froze as the realization hit. "Oh Crowley, you'll never believe it, I was --" the angel's entire body began to shake, breath stopped.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: The Longest Night [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1546606
Comments: 199
Kudos: 1057
Collections: Good Omens (Complete works), Quick Reads





	Recounting the Deeds of the Day

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first fic ever! And I'm so nervous. I'd love feedback. These two doofuses have slayed me and I can't think about anything else.
> 
> Nobody needs a new Bus Ride scene but I needed to write one. I couldn't resist eavesdropping on the real-time exchange: "So how was YOUR day?"

The bus ride back to London was utterly silent.

But only for the first seven minutes.

Crowley claimed a plastic bucket seat by the window with uncharacteristic stiffness, and before Aziraphale could wonder where to land, he felt a quick tug on his coatsleeve toward the seat adjacent.

They sat. They stared straight ahead. They kept their hands to themselves.

The angel was all frozen finishing school rigidity. His lungs would fill only halfway, but he squared his shoulders hard against the fear and raised his chin stoically. He gripped the wine bottle neck white-knuckled, braced for a rap from the celestial ruler. For expulsion. Discorporation. Destruction.

But he was also too worn out to think about it properly.

After exactly three minutes, Aziraphale bored of the _need_ to think about anything properly, and he let it go. His lungs filled and his shoulders relaxed. He reflexively dimmed the harsh fluorescent lights and adjusted the temperature to Crowley's preference. A jarring automated recording tried to announce a stop, but it halted six words in, surprised at itself, and did not sound again.

After precisely five minutes, familiar fidgets returned to the angel like finches to a fresh-mown field. He adjusted his bowtie, touched his ring and cufflinks, tugged his new corporation's velveteen waistcoat, worn smooth _exactly_ where it had been before. The Antichrist did good detailing.

At minute six, Aziraphale offered the bottle to Crowley and they passed it back and forth in companionable silence. No other passenger spoke. The white noise crescendo / decrescendo of the engine lulled them peaceably toward London.

Until, without warning, at minute seven exactly:

"A tuba gun?"

Crowley blurted the words at full volume, eyebrows arching fiercely.

Aziraphale startled and looked to his left. He had _been_ closer to Crowley, but he'd never _sat_ closer to Crowley, not at length. Their shoulders were pressed together and knees nearly touched. The demon's face in profile was a scant few inches away; if they both turned in at once they'd nearly bump noses.

It all felt distractingly new.

"Sorry, what was that?"

Crowley's eyebrows dove to their steepest V in a single plunge. "What in the flowering heavenly fuck was he even doing there, with his tuba -- gun -- brick -- thing?"

"Oh, that would be Shadwell," said Aziraphale, turning to face front again. "Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell. I suppose I never introduced you. Not the most enlightened soul I'm afraid. And it's rather shaped more like a flugelhorn --"

"No I know who Shadwell _is_, he _works_ for me," Crowley grumped. "I just can't figure how he ineffably turned up at the improbably-British-small-town-Apocalypse-showdown."

"Shadwell works for _you?"_

"Yeh, field operative of mine for decades. Sent him up to investigate Tadfield earlier this week but --"

"_I _sent him to Tadfield too, just the other day. He's been on retainer for me since 1981."

"_Angel_." Crowley snatched the wine bottle, found it empty, refilled it. "You. Know. Shadwell? You _employ_ Shadwell?!" He attacked the bottle as if he held it responsible for this revelation.

Aziraphale cocked an eyebrow thoughtfully. "If we both sent him to Tadfield, the question is what he was doing in Soho this afternoon."

"Polishing his tuba gun thing, apparently. How'd he get way out here with you then?" Armed now with a wine bottle, Crowley could gesticulate to full effect, arms flung all over creation.

"He happened to call on Madame Tracy just when I -- well -- when we began, that is, _cohabiting_. She was holding a séance, I found her open to, er, hosting, and while we discussed plans he charged in to defend her honor. And he had a weapon, as you've observed. So we brought him along."

"But wait wait wait wait wait. _Shadwell_ escorted. The two of you. All the way from London?" Crowley's knee bounced and his voice arpeggiated wildly as he collated the facts. "On a scooter. WITH the tuba gun thing? So you could murder the Antichrist -- with _that?_"

The angel nodded, biting his lip. "Mm-hmm."

Aziraphale reached for the flailing bottle. It was all rather a lot, and Crowley was spinning up more than winding down.

"And that was _after_ you found me at the bar. So then how did you beat me here? How the heaven'd you cross the M25?"

"Well I had to expedite our party's progress overland. Frivolous miracle reprimands were unlikely to matter anymore, so I just..." Aziraphale gestured a tipsy curlicue as if it clarified anything. "Off we all went. Didn't notice anything odd about the M25. Even so, I was shocked as anything we overtook you, the way you drive. And when you arrived, you -- your car -- what was....? How........?" He couldn't think where to begin the question, didn't know what the question was, so he stopped his mouth with wine.

Thought of the Bentley dampened Crowley's tornadic spin. "Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeh. It'sss been a flaming hell of a day is all." He slumped til his knees hit the next seat up and he could slump no further. "Lots of flames. Flamey -- fiery -- fuckin' -- flames."

Aziraphale knowingly handed the bottle back with an elaborate "after you" flourish. Crowley made good use of it. Quietude settled over them.

But only for fifty-five seconds.

"Should we be drinking on the bus, do you think?" asked the angel mildly, noting the other passengers doggedly ignoring the Loud Talkers With Wine.

"Mmnaaaah, doesn't matter. Half are envious, other half are busy feeling smug they're better than us and would never do such a thing. 'N the driver's shrugging off responsibility to do anything about it. Envy, pride, sloth, m'work's cut out for me really. Have a go?"

Aziraphale blithely accepted the proffered drink. "I mean I probably shouldn't. But then I expect I've already done the worst thing I'll do today. And it also happened to be the best thing. So."

"Funny, that."

The angel drank. _Funny if I did the right thing and you did the wrong one, _he thought. _Funny how the worst thing you ever do can be the best._

"So are you then. Ng."

Aziraphale turned to face Crowley and he was looking back this time, and oh _dear_ but he was right there. Smudges of soot and hints of new stubble flashed gold every half-second or so, lit in a pulsing rhythm by the streetlamps flying past outside. His silhouette glowed backlit on the offbeats. Light, shadow, light, shadow.

"You coming over? To ng umm. To mine. Or uh, or no?"

Crowley's glasses reflected twins of Aziraphale's pristine new corporation, flashing light and dark in the same rhythm. That corporation appeared rather overwhelmed by a Choice. But perhaps -- its owner thought -- it also looked ready to _do what it wanted to_ with the last few hours of its existence. Perhaps every Choice from now on was smaller than the Choices Aziraphale had already made today.

"Yes, I would like to. if it's not any trouble. That's very ki --" Crowley grimaced and shot up an open palm between them in exasperation. "I mean, I'm quite gratef --"

"Nope! No gratitude tripe, no kind this nice that. Just...do it or don't."

Aziraphale smiled his sunniest and refused to be cowed. "You are not the boss of me, as they say, demon Crowley. I'll thank you for your kindness if I want to. Foul fiend."

Crowley huffed in faux outrage and snarled back, and their very different expressions in profile were oh, _quite close. _At length Crowley flopped to face front in a cool sullen sprawl. He sighed. "You just -- should have a place to go. Sorry. 'Bout the bookshop. And. Y'know."

"Well I was very sorry to hear about your friend," Aziraphale replied tenderly.

"My friend? What friend? You're my friend."

"The one you lost?"

They faced one another again, Aziraphale sympathetic and bewildered, Crowley's surprised-scowl deepening, noses _so very close just right there. _But a familiar mounting tension flared this time.

"Angel, look, I know you don't --"

And there was that Tone. Oh dear. Aziraphale rushed in to curtail it. "When I telephoned, you said you had an old friend over. Then at the pub you told me you lost....?"

"OH! Ohhhhhhh, no no no no." Crowley flicked his wrist broadly to dismiss something or other and seized the alcohol. The Tone mercifully evaporated. "Of course you'd have connected those. No. 'S not what happened at all. The old friend thing, when you called, there were demons in my office."

"You have an office?"

"In my _flat_, the office in my flat. Demons in it was the interesting part I thought." Crowley suddenly pretzeled into an improbable pile of triangles: turned his back against the window, hoisted a shoe onto his seat, knee doubled up and hands clasped on it, other foot kicked all the way under their bench, elbows flung across seat backs sideways. "Ugh. Now I think about it, there's still some demon in my flat."

"They came to reprimand you?"

"Came to _finish_ me, angel. I'd cocked up the Apocalypse. Acoppa -- Acockalypse." He smirked and drank. The alcohol was settling in nicely.

"Crowley! But they didn't."

"Nnnnnnope." The smirk broke into a wide grin. "Thanks to my favorite vintage thermos and my _actual_ old friend. Saved my life and you weren't even there!" Crowley toasted him with the bottle.

"So," Aziraphale ventured, looking at his hands, "you used it."

"Yes, thanks to which I am alive. Keep up now."

"And you -- you meant you lost me. I'm your best friend."

"Well don't get a big head about it, angel. Who the heaven else do I spend any time with?"

"I-I-I mean," Aziraphale stammered, as good as crafting invisible orgami in his fluttering fingers, "I _am_ glad to hear it. You are certainly mine. And I'm, I'm honored you'd tell me so today. Only -- I fear I really haven't been much of -- not really -- I --"

He'd felt this moment coming on all evening, like nightfall, like winter, and he buried his face in his hands. He had hoped to bar the door against it a little longer. Perhaps this jovial bus banter so far was just running on fumes, mere adrenaline -- and whatever moments of happiness were left to them, Aziraphale hated to ruin. Their conversations were always a dance. This one had been going so _well._

But it had to be said.

The demon waited, entirely at ease in a pose that would give a human a hernia.

"Crowley you know I have been abominable to you this week. And, really, always. You deserve a far better friend than --"

"Oh sod off with all this angel, I've heard it before," said Crowley, not unkindly.

"No no no I really must. I _must. _Because you were right, of course you were right about everything, you always are," Aziraphale went on, blinking rapidly, breath starting to catch. "About the holy water, about Heaven, about _our side,_ and the flood and the plague and the Age of Exploration -- about the Arrangement, all of it, you were always right. And I knew I should believe you, but I believed in them more, and that was -- oh. And I wanted to protect you by denying you but that was just another kind of failure to --"

"Angel."

"No, listen, I'm sorry, I'm really and truly sorry about all of it, you must know how much. Here we are with so little time left and I only wish I had been _brave_ \--"

_"Angel."_

Aziraphale looked up at last, anticipating the disgust Crowley reserved for sentimental matters. They'd reached this very point before, and the demon often as not exploded or stalked away. But tonight he looked calmly amused, chin resting on his hands.

"Not to critique your process but I think that about covers it?" Crowley's voice was thick with alcohol and contentment. "Your apology for being wrong about _literally everything_ is duly noted and your forgiveness assured. Further self-allif -- ifflallo -- self-flagellation not required. 'S not the Dark Ages."

"But --"

"I mean if y' gotta get it out of your system, then _mnnmmeugh_," here he insterted a gesture clearly meant to communicate more than it did. "But I'd as soon you do the rest of it in a mirror or something. I got the bits I needed and I don't enjoy hearing you talk about yourself the way those pompous gits Upstairs do. If it makes you feel better, well. Have at it but not around me."

He leaned his head back against the window and passed the bottle. "And I'm not right about all of it anyway, you ridiculous hatrabbit. You know better. Wha'd've happened if we actually left the bloody planet? Or you actually shot the boy with the tuba gun? Whose fucked up idea could _that_ have been."

Aziraphale still floundered, clinging to wretchedness, seeking some penance. "It's just I've been so dreadful to you. Today, even. I feel such a fool for believing that Heaven would see reason."

"'S only what you've been taught to believe for millennia, angel. Only what gives you purpose. 'S your community, even if it's a shit community. Should be a picnic to cast all that aside, yeh? 'Specially on short notice -- in a crisis -- at the End of Days. Totally reasonable of me to demand that of you."

"Crowley, really!"

"Look. Do you think I'm unaccustomed to you being _wrong,_ angel?"

Aziraphale frowned, jerked abruptly out of his wallow.

"Pardon?"

Crowley grinned broadly. "I mean you have this whole dance you do when you know I'm right and you're wrong. And's not like I don't know the steps by heart."

Aziraphale's penitent tenor dropped to a defensive baritone. _"Pardon."_

"First you act horrified," Crowley explained as if it were the water cycle, "then there's the bit where you justify and explain things sacri -- ng -- sanctimoniously. After that you disavow me and pretend we don't know each other. Then -- usually in my absence -- evidence mounts 'til you snap, and then you, whaddyou, turn up again and act like you agreed with me all along. Wossat, five parts? The five stages of Aziraphale Coming Round. I could sell that in a self-help book I bet."

Aziraphale blanched, feeling a little too Seen. And it had been shaping up to be such a nice apology.

"And I mean sometimes it takes you centuries, so all things considered you got there pretty swiftly. Less'n a week. Well done angel." Crowley spread his palms graciously with a smile. "Welcome, once again, to acknowledging my genius."

The angel's face knit into a fine fuss as his indignation wrestled with his contrition. Crowley glowed obscenely proud; nothing brightened his day like a good angel-flustering.

But humility won out. Aziraphale recalled the break in his friend's voice: _I lost my best friend_. And a few hours earlier, the lie in his own: _I don't even like you! _He bowed his head thoughtfully, and murmured, "Yes, well. I can't imagine it doesn't hurt. That third stage at least. Disavowing."

Crowley scrunched his nose carelessly. "Nnh. I mean it does, but then it's nothing new. I know what all you meant, I speak fluent Aziraphale by now." Perhaps this nonchalance was self-defense, perhaps he just wasn't inclined to nurse a dark mood. Either way he refused to dive deeper. "Probably saved my arse a dozen times that you deny me now and again, you know I haven't the fucking sense for it."

Aziraphale persisted. "But it did hurt you. I saw it."

"Maybe we'll have a good holler and fix it all up someday then. But not tonight." Crowley's smile turned serious and a little sad. "If we only have a few hours left to live, angel, I mean look -- I'm so blessed relieved you still fucking _exist_, that we all do, I thought you'd gone and burnt up in the middle of the worst day of my everything, and after that I'm just not up to --"

"Oh, I didn't burn up," Aziraphale corrected breezily.

Crowley unpretzeled in a flash and leaned in, hissing.

_"What. _What did they do to you."

"Who?"

"I don't know who. Heaven. Hell. Whoever. _What did they do," _Crowley growled quietly.

"Well they um -- after you drove off to the stars, as you said -- how did you plan to get there anyway?"

_"Angel!"_

"Well the usual delegation turned up, Uriel, Michael, Sandalphon. They backed me up against the wall by that café, you know the one with the lovely glazed cherry almond scones? And they told me I had to choose a side. They said -- they said that my boyfriend in the dark glasses wouldn't get me any special treatment in Hell." Aziraphale lowered his eyes fearfully at the word 'boyfriend,' then berated himself for missing his chance to watch for any reaction. "They ordered me to report Upstairs for duty. And then --"

"What?!"

"Well I got -- socked in the gut, and that was not particularly pleasant."

"And _then?"_ Crowley was quivering straight up in his seat, knuckles whitening.

"Then they left."

"And then the demons showed up?"

"What? No. No demons. I went to --"

_"Aziraphale."_ Crowley squirmed, all coiled dark energy, running a hand through his ashy hair. "How the _everlasting FUCK _were you discorporated!"

"Oh! Oh, I was -- hm. I suppose -- I was --"

Aziraphale froze as the realization hit. He covered his open mouth with one hand and his eyes flew wide. "Oh Crowley, you'll never believe it, I was --" the angel's entire body began to shake, breath stopped, eyes squeezing shut.

Crowley panicked.

He cursed his stupidity for demanding the recitation of such a recent trauma. All bristle and rage dissipated and his hands fluttered helplessly. "Shit, oh fuck me, sorry 'Ziraphale, you don't have to, can you just breathe --"

But as the angel dropped a shaking hand from his mouth and reared his head back, tears streaming from his eyes, Crowley did a double-take. Aziraphale was _laughing._ Laughing so hard he made no sound, so hard his face was turning scarlet. He put a hand on his chest and gasped repeatedly, trying to compose himself, only clearing the way for a top-volume leonine _roar_ of a laugh from the bottom of his soul

The passengers jumped and stared. Aziraphale was fit to have a tea party on the ceiling. He was beyond all help, and his demon was utterly at ends.

"What the -- ff nkg what nn -- how --" yelled Crowley, half-standing, groping around as if for a fire extinguisher or a toilet plunger, a ripcord to pull, a tool of some kind to solve _specifically This_. "The heaven, angel? Can you not share with the class what's so funny about your untimely death?! Because, and allow me to fucking clarify, I was NOT amused."

"I was -- I was -- I was --" choked Aziraphale, finally, _"exorcised."_

"Ex-what?"

"Exorcised!"

On the list of words Crowley expected to hear, that might have been the very last.

"What?! How! That's not even a-a-a thing!"

"Sh - Shhhhh -- Shhhhhhadwell --"

"Not -- _what!"_

"He -- he was -- he was -- hehehehehehe..." Aziraphale could not continue, it was all too absurd for words.

And at last, because the idea of Shadwell + exorcism + Aziraphale was inconceivably ridiculous, the contagion of laughter swept Crowley up as well. Crowley had cultivated a fantastically sophisticated evil laugh over millennia of practice. But this was something different, spurred by the exhaustion and illogic of the day: the sounds Crowley made were not at all dignified or cool, snorts and gasps and wheezes and half-sobs.

(They terrified nonetheless. A demon's laugh at its merriest can still freeze the blood.)

The passengers on the bus began to share _looks_ and psychically bond in their terror, wondering when this ordeal would end with the loud drunken incomprehensible laughing sooty -- what were they even? Londoners. Must be Londoners. And when was the Gloucester Green Station stop coming up?

Crowley and Aziraphale laughed til they cried and it wasn't about exorcisms anymore. They were overcome by the Day, by the decade, by 6000 years of the Ineffable Plan itself. They set one another off again each time relief seemed near. They gripped shoulders and rubbed backs and grabbed knees in their shared hysterics. Aziraphale finally recovered his breath enough to recount contacting the Metatron, phoning Crowley, Shadwell's wrathful bookshop invasion, and the confrontation with the Quartermaster -- all through prodigious giggling. Crowley was delighted to hear the dark possibilities he'd imagined put to rest by the ridiculous truth, and he cackled demonically throughout the recitation.

"You'd be proud of me, I swore something awful just as I ascended. The timing was lucky, I nearly said it on the other end, up in Heaven."

Crowley raised his glasses enough to wipe his eyes. "Wish I'd've heard that, hoohoo, phhhoooooooo." He threw an arm across the back of Aziraphale's seat. They'd collapsed into each other breathlessly several times, and now their heads brushed close, and Crowley's sleeve was right there, and hands and ribs and arms seemed reluctant to go from touching back to not-touching. Aziraphale let his forehead fall heavy onto the outstretched shoulder. The demon's temple crushed the angel's curls as their breathing slowed. They were quite tipsy. It felt good.

"You know my dear, just today I've been exorcised, I've been a spectral appler -- apparition, I possessed a medium. And I lied to you, I lied to the Metatron, I renounced the military duty for which I was created, I attempted murder, I stood against the Heavenly Host, and I faced down the devil. I Questioned the Great Plan to Gabriel himself!"

"You even held hands with the Antichrist."

"Quite. It's been a rather demonic day for me, my dear."

"Pffffffffft sssss, 's well done then, couldn't be prouder." Crowley patted his arm approvingly.

A small frown. "Stay tuned for my grand finale," Aziraphale declared in his stage magician voice. "A promise of hellfire or your money back." He laughed one last time, dark and fey, before lofting the wine and closing his eyes.

"Thass not -- 's not funny angel."

"I know." Another drink. "But it is a bit."

"Not really."

"I know."

Aziraphale turned the interior bus lights all the way down, so the only illumination came from passing headlamps on the M40. Crowley drained the bottle dry and dropped it to roll noisily to the back of the bus. He wrapped his free arm around Aziraphale's chest and laced fingers in a heap on the angel's far shoulder -- the swaying clasp of drinking fellows from time immemorial. Except they remembered all the time, all of it. So far.

"We did it though," said Aziraphale. "We did your plan. All the way through somehow, even with the cock-up. She must -- She must've approved or She wouldn't've let us."

"D'we even do all that much in the end?"

"Well we helped. Or we tried. Or something. We witnessed?"

"We made it there."

"Quite."

"Adam seems all right. Got you sorted out anyhow, don't know how you'd have ever got reincorporated."

"Mm-hmm."

Aziraphale felt Crowley turn his head, sniff a long breath in and out that ruffled his hair. "..........'Ziraphale?"

"Yes?"

"D'you read that last prophecy the way I do, y'think?"

"I expect so. It seems fairly straightforward. We'll try it out later tonight."

"I just. Mmf. They know where I live. Think they've got it together this fast? Don't want to um -- can't take you somewhere unsssafe. ...Maybe they've come already."

Aziraphale sighed, grateful to be buried in a soft shoulder so he didn't have to look at Crowley just now. "I doubt they'll be sorted til morning, but you never know. She doesn't say whether it works. Agnes. But either we have a few hours left of our existence, or else quite a long time indeed, and I hope -- I should hope that we'd do the same no matter --" his mouth ran dry, and he paused. "Funny, that's rather human, isn't it? Knowing you don't have forever. I mean _really_ knowing. It feels strange."

"We've made enemies of every blessed and damned immortal there is. Might be living with that feeling for the rest of our existence."

"No worse than our charges do."

"Nn. Then however long --" Crowley broke off his sentence, and the erstwhile embrace, rearing up abruptly to look out the window.

"What is it?" Aziraphale tried not to sound disappointed at losing his place. He had very much wanted to know how that sentence ended.

"M25."

"Ah. What happened there? You keep mentioning."

Crowley pressed a hand to the glass, looking down off the flyover as they crossed. The cars below putted along peaceably enough, drivers feeling their usual humany feelings and utterly unaware that hellfire had raged from their route hours before. Crowley frowned. Had they forgotten? Was it fixed? Or were they just that resilient? So shockingly quick to adjust after disasters, humans. Even when and where they shouldn't.

He sobered up a touch so he could mentally comb through the details of the day, wondering if any were slipping.

"We should write this all down, angel. Tonight. I think people are going to forget it. Maybe even us."

"Forget the kraken and Atlantis?"

"Well, what Adam did, he didn't just stop it did he, he made parts of it never happen, and -- who knows. Who knows what comes of that. Does he remember? Do his friends? What gets fixed and what stays Apocalypsed? 'S'all a big -- whatsitcalled -- you know, conundrum impossible thingy that's extra impossible."

"A paradox."

"That."

Aziraphale chuckled despite himself. "The Apocaparadox."

"Mmn. Armageddn't."

"Armagaffe."

"Apocapunk'd."

"Acrockalypse."

"Apocawhoops."

"Aflopalypse."

"Those are all terrible," Crowley concluded. He arched out to his full length, stretching fingertips to toes and yawning. "Okay, now I'm proper tired."

Aziraphale reached his arm across the back of Crowley's seat, though it looked unnatural for him. Perhaps there was hope of _continuing_ with the leaning if they picked it up again quickly enough? They'd done it moments ago, it couldn't be off limits now.

"How long since you've slept, dear boy?"

"Phooo. Dunno really." He looked dazed now as it all caught up to him. Aziraphale felt bold enough to tug on Crowley's coatsleeve, just a little, inviting the demon down to rest. Crowley settled into the crook of the angel's neck without fanfare. "Had an angry nap or three at Warlock, back at the estate, but it's been a good decade since a real sleeping spell. Doubt tonight's time to start though. Lots to do."

Aziraphale allowed his chin to settle against fiery red hair, which smoldered more than usual in that it smelled of woodsmoke. And asphalt, and oil, and burnt upholstery and rubber -- and _worse_. The angel inhaled and winced sadly now that the demon couldn't see. Burnt paper and leather. _Books on fire._ The smell of Alexandria and Tianjin and Berlin. He'd know it anywhere.

So Crowley had been in the bookshop while it burned, he must have. He'd retrieved Agnes Nutter's prophecies all charred around the edges. _Why had the shop burned?_ Had the host descended after he defied the Quartermaster? Had demons arrived on a tip about the 'boyfriend in the dark glasses?' Or was it merely some electrical fault during the End Times storm, a gas burner next door left unattended?

No matter the cause, Crowley had sauntered into an inferno and saved an angel's precious book of prophecy. Again. The reprise of a burning feeling from 1941 blazed over Aziraphale.

"We'll make you a nice pot of coffee when we get home," the angel said.

"Home?" The word was vulnerable and small, muffled in his lapel. "You've never been there."

"You know what I mean. Home as in where Our Side will be headquartered tonight."

"Mm." Crowley settled deeper into his nook. Aziraphale thought how his coat must be getting covered in black sooty smudges, and thought how nice it was not to mind. Crowley would fix it.

"If you want to rest I'll wake you when we get there."

"Or if I snore. Wake me then too."

"Oh I won't promise that. Wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Bastard."

"Will you tell me about the M25 later?"

"Mmmfff. Not much to tell now or later. It exploded into hellish flames, and it was entirely my own blessed fault as per usual. No way out but through. I went through."

"And the Bentley made it."

"Yeah, it jussss....did. Well it din't, obviously." He sniffed. "I mean it got where it had to, then I couldn't keep her together anymore."

"And you arrived right on time, my dear." Aziraphale nearly kissed Crowley's ash-speckled hair, froze, decided he couldn't be felt or heard if he just did it silently so he might as well.

"Angel."

"Mm?"

".......Don't burn up again. Couldn't take it."

Aziraphale rubbed Crowley's shoulder fondly. "I haven't yet."

Crowley did not sleep, but did seem to rest, his head going heavier and crossed arms falling loose. Aziraphale looked ahead and steeled himself for the long night. This was only the beginning. But it did feel a little like a _new_ beginning, even if the end was only a few hours off.

After some time Hyde Park started scrolling by in parallax, trees and benches and late night couples strolling. Aziraphale glanced up at reflected Crowley in the bus window to gauge his wakefulness. Crowley flinched and turned his head subtly in response -- had he been watching in the window the whole time? Confounded glasses.

"Nearly there," said the angel softly.

"So what you're telling me is," Crowley murmured, "you rode to Tadfield on a flying scooter inside a dominatrix wrapped in the arms of the double agent subcontractor of Heaven and Hell who discorporated you not two hours earlier."

"With a tuba gun, yes, dearest."

"Angel, this must all be ineffable as fuck, I can't make heads nor tails."

Crowley sat up groggily and Aziraphale reclaimed his arm, all pins and needles from the punishing plastic seatback. Which made it feel doubly odd when Crowley took his tingling hand and squeezed once as the bus pulled to a stop.

"Here we are then," he said, and nudged Aziraphale's knee with his own. The angel stood and led the way to the rear door.

"Thank you," Aziraphale called to the bus driver, ensuring she'd not be missing any petrol nor have added any miles to the odometer. He blessed her driving, her sleep, her lower back, and her beginning efforts at screenwriting in off hours. Crowley just made a bank error in her favor with a snap, fan of free will as he was.

They swayed on the sidewalk beneath the modernist concrete monolith. They kept holding hands. Aziraphale dropped his gaze to his shoes, the hedge, anywhere but the penthouse windows where there might or might not be more demons lying in wait.

"Can't believe I've never been up here."

"Can't either."

"Well you've never asked me."

"Did so."

"When?"

"In 2012, you said you wanted to try making cupcakes and I said you should use the kitchen."

"Oh really? I do remember that. I suppose I didn't think your invitation serious, since you called me some terrible names at the same time. And you had quite a disparaging rant about cupcakes too."

"Meant to disparage cupcake vending machines mainly."

"They weren't one of yours?"

"Should've been. Embarrassing's what it is, any imp could've anticipated that one."

They both looked up to the top floor.

"Should we....do you need anything, groceries or what have you? Any errands?" Aziraphale proposed.

"Not really. You hungry?"

"Oh, I don't think I could eat tonight, my dear."

"'Spose we should just go up."

"Right. And -- and there's probably nobody up there. I mean it's incredibly unlikely. Of course. Just taking every reasonable precaution and then some." Aziraphale internally lectured himself about blathering and squeezed the hand in his. "Swap in the lift then?"

Crowley took a deep breath. "Okay."

They entered the sleek glass doors and crossed the chic Apple store-ish foyer. Their fingers met on the call button for the lift. Aziraphale chuckled awkwardly and blushed.

Crowley caught a glimpse of himself in the mirrored wall and made a face. "Faugh. Remind me not to use pomade, take a fire hose to the head, and fill my hair with aerosolized demons and Bentley."

"I shall leave a note on your refrigerator to that end."

"Much appreciated."

"It's been rather a day, hasn't it." The lift arrived for them with a melancholy bing and they stepped aboard together.

"You said something about coffee, angel?"

"Yes, now that we're home. I'll get right to it."

**Author's Note:**

> READ THE NEXT BIT, I AM SO LOST ON THESE BOYS: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21985987
> 
> Thank you so much! First-timer nerves can be soothed by any and all comment love! I started a new baby tumblr at @charlottemadison42
> 
> Character thoughts: my bookmarks are full of dark angsty takes on these bois, but in my personal headcanon they know themselves and they know each other pretty well 6000 years in. And with that kind of self-knowledge comes lightheartedness. Crowley loves Queen and Aziraphale loves dessert and that tells me what I need to know about them.
> 
> So that's my take: merry, sparring, friendly, actually decent communicators. I wanted to give 'em a break from the angst and get into the mundane loveliness of their all-night conversations, the core of their relationship so far that they'd defy heaven and hell to save. Dialogue forever. It helps to have the delightful voices of Michael Sheen and David Tennant in my head now to spark the imagination.


End file.
